What is Exploit development?

Exploit development is the process of researching vulnerabilities in software or hardware and creating code (an exploit) that leverages these vulnerabilities to cause unintended behavior. This is commonly used by security researchers to demonstrate vulnerabilities, by penetration testers to assess system security, and, unfortunately, by malicious actors to gain unauthorized access to systems or data. Exploits can range from simple buffer overflows to complex logic flaws that allow for remote code execution.